NTXCoog

Here's an article from the UH student newspaper about Manhattan Construction with references to their work on Apogee.

We don't have the same architects, just the same construction company.

Most bowls are money losers for the schools. Even the big bowls are money losers if the fans don't buy tickets and hotel rooms through the school. One of the good things about CUSA having so many bowls is if you're bowl eligible, you go. That's not the case for all non-AQs. Going to a bowl, any bowl, helps in 2 different ways: 1) You get to say to a recruit that you went to a bowl 2) You get an extra month's practice. Although it's not a guarantee, those 2 things can really help to maintain the status of being a winning team.

I could see the TicketCity bowl becoming the destination for the CUSA champ at some point. CUSA is headquartered in Dallas and is heavily involved in the bowl. Liberty has wanted out of CUSA even with the current line up. Notice no CUSA champ in there for 2011 for the first time in CUSA's existence which was caused by the new agreement. With Memphis out, I see it becoming a Big East bowl. CUSA has always had the best non-AQ Conference bowl tie ins. On top of CUSA bowl changes, I'm also curious what happens to the WAC, MWC, and even Sun Belt bowls with all of the realignment.

UNT's only win against a ranked team ever. Somehow I doubt a 5-1 SDSU team with a loss to Arizona and wins over Tampa, UTEP, Fresno, San Jose, and Cal St-Long Beach would be ranked these days.

UNT is still up by one because of its 6-2 domination in the 1940s and 1950s. Since then UH has won 4 out of 5 including the last 3. UNT's last win was in 1975.

We're less concerned with SMU than we are @ECU and especially @Marshall. @Marshall is a tough place to play, especially late in the year. Last time we played there UH WR Patrick Edwards had one of the most gruesome sports injuries ever. If you haven't seen it, just search Youtube for it. I don't even like to think about it. It's amazing that he came back from that to be as productive as he was. We're currently on a 6 game winning streak against SMU. In 2010 when we went 5-7, we blew them out 45-20 at SMU with Piland playing in only his 3rd game. I guess eventually SMU is going to get theirs, but I'm not sure this is the year. They have a new QB and they lost their entire OLine. Texas State? We only beat them by 40 two years ago. I don't think anyone expects it to be close. If it becomes a blowout, I'm curious how our coach will handle it. Will he leave Piland in to get game reps? If so, it could get real ugly.

Maybe ball control works, but again, I've only seen 2 games where it really worked against UH and that was back when our run defense was one of the worst in the nation and one of them was the top rushing offense in the country and Keenum had his worst game in a Cougar uniform. Most of our closest games last season had UH with its best TOP games. The logic may be sound, but the results aren't there. Maybe the logic isn't sound because it is different than a normal offense. UH opponents' exhaustion isn't necessarily based on the grind of a run blockers wearing you out. That's traditionally why defenses get tired. But it's the no huddle where there is no chance for substitutions. Most plays are a pass so it's more of a running exhaustion than muscular exhaustion. If there are no big plays and a TD drive takes 10 plays, that can still take under 4 minutes. That's like being worn out from sprints instead of a marathon. Plus there's the mental exhaustion of defensive lineman. If you watch the TicketCity bowl, those Penn State lineman were considered some of the best pass rushers in the country. But seeing the ball come out of the QBs hand in under 3 seconds every time, the DLine gets frustrated from going all out over and over and not even coming close. They talked about how frustrated they were and it sometimes causes linement to stop rushing and just trying to get their hands up in passing lanes. Maybe there are just too many chances for failure in ball control. You have to be able to guarantee 4 yards every play. If you don't, you have to punt and Houston scores. Do that a couple of times and you're behind by a lot and have to abandon ball control. Post Keenum? We've heard the doom and gloom before. When Kevin Kolb was drafted in the 2nd round, all we heard was how UH would fall off the map. Now with Keenum leaving, again UH is going to fall off the map. I don't expect Piland as a sophomore to be as good as Keenum as a senior. Can Piland as a sophomore be as good as Keenum as a sophomore? Maybe so. And if so, that may mean another 5000 season. Keep in mind that Keenum's sophomore year he had a new head coach and a totally new offense to learn so it's not a totally different situation. With UH's easy schedule this year, I think everyone is expecting 8-4 at the worst and the most common prediction is 9-3. If we get past UCLA which will be very tough, it's entirely possible to go undefeated in the regular season, but no one is going to predict that. And yes some of these posts get long... But I think we're making interesting football arguments that can be too much for short snippets.

And amazingly, that game was only his 5th highest rated game last year for QB rating and 4th best for yardage. The Marshall game was ridiculous. 24 of 28 for 376 yards and 6 TDs. The 9 TDs and 534 yards vs Rice was pretty amazing too especially considering after 13:46 minutes in the 1st, he had a total of 26 yards passing and an INT. Plus he didn't play with 8 minutes left in the 4th. Basically 9 TDs in 2 1/2 quarters. How ridiculous is UH's history when 9 TDs in a game is 2 shy of tying the UH record for TDs in a game. Doubtful Piland will put up numbers like those in any game this year, but he'll still have some of the best numbers in the country.

I still don't think TOP is the issue. Like I said, the only game that UH won the TOP battle, we lost. UH scores so fast, it's usually UH's defense that tires more than the opponent's D. Out of 85 offensive TDs, only 4 took longer than 4 minutes. Only 11 took 10 or more plays. The only teams to really beat Keenum with a TOP game was UCF and Air Force in 2009 and our defense has improved since then. UH's lowest 2 TOP games last season were 17:45 vs Marshall and 21:25 vs Rice. The scores of those games were 63-28 and 73-34. And that cramp ploy hasn't worked yet. SMU is the worst at it and UH has beaten them 6 straight. Tulsa and TT used it too in losses. I'm not one to boo injured players, but when you see players fake injuries frequently, sometimes real injuries get booed because it looks like another fake one.

Interesting consideration. I'm not going through every play of the season, so I looked at offensive and special teams TDs >=20 yards. UH had about 1100 offensive plays or about 79 plays per game. We had 40 TDs>=20 yards. Dividing long TDs by number of plays and UH is at about 3.6% UNT had about 827 plays or about 69 plays per game. I was surprised that UNT only had 10 less offensive plays per game. UNT had 11 TDs >=20 yards or about 1.3%. Out of curiousity I picked another high octane offense Baylor who was #4 in scoring (UH as #1). They had about 1000 plays or 77 plays per game and 36 TDs >=20 yards. That comes out to 3.6%, almost identical to UH. Regarding the change in offensive coaching: according to this article, Nesbitt is not only using the same offense, but we're even continuing to use the same terminology as before so there should be little transition for the players learning a new offense. With Keenum mentoring Piland over the last 2 years, including the year Piland played 8 games, I'm guessing he's learned a lot about the offense since he was thrown to the wolves after the 2 QB injuries. Regarding Piland taking a few games to get into the flow, it's possible. I don't think Keenum was hitting on all cylinders in the early games last year either after coming back from injury. In Piland's freshman year you could argue that it took him some time. But I think we emphasized the run a lot more to help him out once he started. In his last 2 games, he had 467 and 441 yards.

The difference is that UH has a QB with 8 starts as a true freshman averaging 330 yards and 3 TDs per game. Expanded over a 13 game season (yes, we'll make a bowl this year), that's about 4300 yards and 39 TDs. Not Keenum numbers, but not bad, especially for a true freshman. What RB does UNT have with any significant amount of starts that you could extrapolate to even 1000 yards over a season? And helping out Piland, we have a RB (Sims) who last year had about 1400 yards from scrimmage (821 yards rushing on 7.5 YPC and 575 yards receiving) and 13 TDs even though he split time with 2 other RBs who had a combined 1038 yards rushing and 590 yards receiving. Compare that to Dunbar who had 1465 yards from scrimmage and 12 TDs. Admittedly Sims did play in 1 more game than Dunbar.

Clock burning only works against UH if you score almost every time. Out of UH's 85 offensive TDs, 52 of them were under 2 minutes. 20 were under 1 minute. By comparison, UNT had 36 offensive TDs total. UH lost the time of possession battle in every game except one: USM which was our only loss. Odd statistic, huh? Some of our biggest blowouts had the worst TOP e.g. we scored 63 on Marshall with only 17:45 TOP. Field position doesn't really matter much either. Out of UH's 85 TDs, 25 of them were 80 yards or more. Out of UH's 186 drives last season, we only had 43 where we gained less than 10 yards. Out of those 43, 5 were to end the game,1 was end of the half, and 1 was a TD. We had almost twice as many TD drives than drives <10 yards. Our average drive was 44 yards and median drive was 49. Hard to win a field position battle when your opponent averages 44 yards per possesion. The key to beating UH isn't time of possession or field position. The key is stopping the big TD play. USM allowed 4 TDs against UH. The drives were: 11 plays for 65 yards 5:20 5 plays for 61 yards 1:36 1 play for 4 yards 0:03 12 play for 70 yards 2:38 UH's longest TD play was 50 yards. Next longest was 13.

I'm not sure if it would have made much difference. UNT definitely improved as the season went on, but so did UH. In the 10 regular season games after UNT, we had one lower scoring game than UNT (SMU 37), one the same (Tulsa 48), and 8 higher (ranging from 49 to 73 points). The D also improved. In 6 of 10 remaining regular season games including the last 4, we gave up less than 20 points, and in our bowl game, we gave up 14. We did have the disaster vs USM with the whole Sumlin interviewing at aTm issue, but we definitely got better as the season went on too.

Which is why I don't think SMU will be as good as many sites are predicting. They are replacing every member of their OLine and 2 all conference DLine. UH is losing 2 VERY good LBs, but we have our entire DLine and all but one OLine returning.

The Houston QB David Piland played as a true freshman in 2010 after both Keenum and Cotton Turner got injured against UCLA. Terrance Broadway (now at ULaLa) started 1 game after the injuries, but Piland started the rest of the season. In 8 games, he had 2641 yards passing, 24 TDs, and 14 INTs. His 330 yards per game would have been good for #3 in the nation between Landry Jones and Brandon Weeden, but he needed to play in 1 more game to be counted in the official rankings. He redshirted last year. A lot of people say UH is going to be bad because Piland's team in 2010 went 5-7. Keenum would probably be good for at least a couple more wins, but the biggest problem that year was defense which was 103rd in yardage and 96th in points. Last year that improved to 62nd and 35th. Moving up 61 places in scoring defense is amazing. Most think the defense will be at least that good this year. Even if it stays in the top 50 in scoring defense, UH will be ok with our offense. In the 8 games Piland started, we averaged 34 PPG. If you're curious about SOS that year, Piland played 3 out of 8 games against teams that finished in the top 25. The starting Houston RB will be Charles Sims. He was the leading rusher for UH although he split a lot of time with Hayes and Beall. He averaged 7.5 yards per carry. He was also the 4th leading receiver for UH. In 2011, he was 1st team all CUSA. In 2009, he was CUSA freshman of the year. He had to sit out 2010 for academic issues, but in 2011 he made the commissioner's honor roll so hopefully he has that under control. UH did lose their top 3 receivers. There is a ton of talent though and we'll see who steps up. Leading the way will be Deontay Greenberry, the highly regarded recruit who changed his commitment on signing day from Notre Dame to Houston. There is a TON of speed at WR, so let's see if they can catch the ball. Considering our leading receiver Patrick Edwards was originally a walk on and 3rd leading receiver Tyron Carrier originally came to UH for track, it will interesting to see how 3 & 4 star recruits do. They have a lot to live up to. Helping Piland out will be an experienced OL where we return 4 out of 5 starters. UH had 2011 1st team, 2nd team, and honorable mention all conference linemen who are coming back. Losing Sammy Brown and Marcus McGraw on defense will definitely hurt, but we do have 8 starters returning on defense. Special teams will be solid with UH returning our punter and kicker. Interesting to see who will replace Carrier and Edwards on returns. Coaching staff? That is a little bit of an unknown. Levine is a first time college head coach, but then again, so were Briles and Sumlin. He looked great in his first game as head coach beating a ranked Penn State in our bowl. New OC is Mike Nesbitt. He was OC at SFA and West Texas A&M and was very successful at that level. We'll be running the same offense. New DC is Jamie Bryant. He was LB coach at UH last year. Before that he was DC at Vanderbilt.

They have UH favored in 11 of our 12 games. The only exception is UH as a 2.5 point dog to UCLA in LA. Obviously they don't think UH will be 11-1. But using the odds of winning based off point spread (e.g. a 2 point favorite wins 55% of the time while a 17 point favorite wins 95% of the time), they would have us with a 9-3 record. I've seen at least 2 major publications with that prediction.

I'd definitely recommend it if you're going to be wearing green and cheering for UNT. The student section can be a bit "enthusiastic."

1. The student section is almost always full. It's general admission so we have seen some lines on game day for bigger games. There are usually student guest tickets available for purchase starting the Monday before the game. The number of guest tickets are limited, and for some very high demand games, they don't have student guest tickets. Try this link for more info on student tickets http://www.uhcougars.com/tickets/hou-tickets-students.html. Some students buy guest tickets just so they don't have to wait in line or worry about getting seats. 2. Sudent section is Sections 117-119, 217-219 & 209-216. Here's a map of the sections (pdf) http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/hou/genrel/auto_pdf/seatingcharts2009-robertson.pdfhttp://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/hou/genrel/auto_pdf/seatingcharts2009-robertson.pdf

The big name program is coming for the opener vs Texas State. And yes, we still sell beer. Come out early and tailgate too. You'll be welcomed to join in.

Big difference between Rice and UH games: the number of seats available to opposing teams. At Rice, there's basically unlimited seating for opponents and anyone can walk up at game time and get a ticket. UH-UNT will be sold out and sold out in advance. So if you're planning on going, get your seats as early as possible.

It's not like all conferences were formed a long time ago. CUSA was formed in 1995. MWC was formed in 1999. Both formed less than 20 years ago and 1 less than 15.

While I enjoy all of the CUSA teams and enjoy watching UH playing them, few CUSA teams got Houston fans to show up just for the opponent. The biggest draw for UH fans is USM because they're consistently solid if not very good and UH has had some great games against them. UTEP usually brings a good travelling crowd too. There's a difference between knowing someone exists and them inspiring you to get off the couch and go to a game. Everyone in this area knows who SFA is, but that doesn't mean they're going to be a draw. Being local isn't a guarantee either. Everyone in Houston knows who Texas Southern is, but when UH played them when UH was having attendance problems, it was a horribly underattended game. Maybe it's different for UH and UNT. UH went from SWC opponents that still get all the media attention in Texas to CUSA opponents that get very little coverage in TX. UNT is moving up in conference with opponents that have slightly better name recognition. But it's still not teams that get TX media coverage. The conference improvement will give UNT a bump, but it won't cure all of UNT's ills. Hopefully it will give a push in the right direction, and the fans will take it the rest of the way. And regarding bands and halftime shows, Grambling was a great draw at UH, primarily because of the band. UH has had some other HBCU teams with outstanding bands come in that have been decent draws when attendance was low.

I would have guessed that. A school should be proud of its accomplishments regardless of sport. UH has won 16 golf championships, second only to Yale (with their last championship in 1943). That's something Coog fans are proud of. But if you're talking sports championships and realignment, the only ones that really matter are football with basketball a distant second. And as was mentioned eariler, championships don't matter much either for realignment. What you can bring to the conference moneywise is more important than championships.

I'm curious what sport or conference Tulsa fan is talking about. They've won 1 CUSA football championship. Of the CUSA schools remaining in conference: USM has won 4 CUSA titles (and shared 1). ECU has won 2. Tulane has won 1. Maybe they meant division titles. Maybe they meant sports other than football. Maybe they included Missouri Valley titles. But they sure haven't won more CUSA football conference championships than any other school